Kevin Ring, Author of Scalia Book, Gets 20 Months in Abramoff Scandal

In his 2004 book, “Scalia Dissents,”Kevin A. Ring explored American law as seen by “the Supreme Court’s Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice.” Now Mr. Ring will have a chance to form his own impressions of the justice system—from the inside.

On Wednesday, Mr. Ring was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison for his role in the Jack Abramoff corruption conspiracy, where the high-powered ex-lobbyist funneled trips, meals and other goodies to people in the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill. “Evidence at trial established Ring to be the ‘COO of Team Abramoff,’ and at one of his sentencing hearings, the court also found that evidence at trial established that Ring was a supervisor of the conspiracy,” the Justice Department said in a news release.

“In one e-mail message, Ring instructed his co-conspirators to ‘thank your friends on the Hill and in the [Bush] Administration. In fact, thank them over and over again this week – preferably for long periods of time and at expensive establishments,’” the department said. “Testimony at trial from Ring’s co-conspirators described Ring joking about corrupting public officials by saying, ‘Hello quid, where’s the pro quo.’”

Before joining the Abramoff operation, Mr. Ring, 41 years old, was a counsel to then-Sen. John Ashcroft (R., Mo.), later attorney general in the Bush administration, and “graduated with honors from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America,” according to the “Scalia Dissents” book jacket.

In his book, which contains edited versions of more than a dozen Scalia opinions, Mr. Ring complains that the Supreme Court “has zigged and zagged from one decision to the next without any discernible concern for the value of the rule of law.” In contrast, Justice Scalia “believes it important to foster respect for the rule of law,” he writes.

The book includes a jacket blurb from another figure implicated in the Abramoff scandal, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R., Texas). “Justice Antonin Scalia is the most principled conservative jurist in my lifetime,” writes Mr. DeLay, who was sentenced to three years in prison but remains free on bail while appealing his conviction for money laundering. “Kevin Ring has done us all a great favor in compiling this volume of extraordinary opinions.”

Mr. Ring faces a future trial on “an additional two counts of obstructing justice,” the Justice Department said Wednesday, stemming “from alleged efforts by Ring to thwart criminal and congressional investigations by preventing the reporting of his criminal conduct to federal authorities.” He “is presumed innocent of these charges until proven guilty in a court of law,” the department added.

In his acknowledgments for “Scalia Dissents,” Mr. Ring singles out for special praise a former Scalia law clerk, Paul Clement, “for his substantive input and overall support for this project.” Mr. Clement, who served as solicitor general in the Bush administration, has often been tagged as a potential Supreme Court nominee himself under a future Republican president.

“I sincerely hope that forty or so years from now someone will be putting together a collection of Paul’s Supreme Court opinions,” Mr. Ring said. Perhaps one will concern United States v. Ring.

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